“The expectations were high after last season,” the newly-capped Ireland under-21 international said.

“It’s been different and not as we would have liked, but we’re just building performance by performance. We’ve got two big clean sheets in a row, which is massive for us.

“Although the performance against Sheffield Wednesday was okay and we didn’t get the result we wanted, it was another clean sheet and then we followed that up at Peterborough.

“If we use that as the platform, it is going to help us.

“We’ve got such a strong defence and we have so much going forward to score goals in any game.

“Keeping a solid four, basically, two banks of four, and using wingers and forwards who can change a game – that’s what we’ve got to keep doing.”

Blues are unbeaten away from home in 2013 and, with five wins, are two short of the number they claimed on their travels last season.

Hull City will provide a stern test on Saturday’s trip, before Blues entertain Blackpool at St Andrew’s a week tonight.

But Reilly says they won’t be tackling Steve Bruce’s Tigers in fear after their professional job at London Road.

“I think we deserved it at Peterborough. We could have been a bit better on the ball at times, but we had some great chances and our counter-attacking play was excellent, we should have won by more,” he said.

Reilly might have scored himself, five minutes after Nikola Zigic’s opener, when he smacked a shot on to the crossbar from the left-hand edge of the penalty area.

And he also might have been red-carded, for a second booking, a trip on Kane Ferdinand in the 75th minute.

“I need to try and get more shots off,” he said. “That’s something I am looking to work on and improve.

“When I picked the ball up and made a bit of space for myself, I thought ‘why not?’. I had a crack and hit it sweetly.

“It was a shame it didn’t go either side, probably a bit more to the right it would have screeched in.

“If the ‘keeper got a touch on it, I don’t know if he did, then it was a fantastic save.”

On his let-off by referee Mick Russell, he commented: “There was nothing I could do. I was trying to track him back and I didn’t break out of stride. I’m not one to try and dig at someone and get these horrible yellow cards, to try and stop a man.

“He was in front of me, he saw me coming on the right, he tried to take the ball and he just clipped my legs.

“I was gutted. You always think the worst, but fortunately for me the referee saw the situation, that it was a complete accident and I didn’t need to do it at all.

“The manager then took me off and said it was the sensible thing to do and looking back, yes, it was the right decision. The game was getting a bit tense at the time.

“Then we got the second goal and it looked a lot better from then on, we were comfortable.”